


how much we have left.

by hyzkoa



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Other, this is just me posting my thoughts on my journey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 18:34:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18744742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyzkoa/pseuds/hyzkoa
Summary: in which I write an article in a world post Avengers: Endgame





	how much we have left.

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [how much we have left: saying goodbye to tony stark](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/479713) by Tres Dean. 



> if anyone's here from user subscriptions there'll be an mcu-616 fic at some point since im working on that it's just that life is beating me senseless with stress
> 
> this was inspired off tres dean's (@treswritesstuff on twitter) article which you can find [here.](https://www.geek.com/movies/how-much-we-have-left-saying-goodbye-to-tony-stark-1786076/)

I read Tres Dean's article and felt myself inspired to go down memory lane, which I do a lot because I love remembering  _ simpler times  _ but I rarely dig deeper when it comes to the MCU. Some of it may come over how I was rejected for expressing interest in heroes, back when it was just the first solo movies and The Avengers had yet to cause its boom, and wanting to buy action figures when cisnormativity said I should be playing with Barbie and baby dolls instead; there's a lingering shame I have gotten better at shaking off after I came out, but it's still there since I tend to care too much about what people think.

That's why I feel like my journey with these characters had a lot of bumps. It started officially back when I was 9, and could barely process what I was looking at besides  _ cool _ . 2010, though, was when it kicked into full strength for two reasons. One was Iron Man 2. Despite its flaws, I ran it so many times in my DVD player I'm surprised the disk still works to this day. I learnt how to pronounce  _ acknowledge _ from it and I find it hilarious I still remember that detail. It kickstarted my frequent visits to the DVD shop where I'd buy Robert Downey Jr. movies in bulk. This did not only birth an obsessive method of self-teaching myself how to find a speaking flow in English, but it's also where I eventually found out my love for movies. Exploring different genres through Phase 1 actors led me to realize that this was a medium of art I absolutely loved, which became a huge part of my life as I still feel that same love and wonder when I go to the movies.

The second reason was Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. I didn't realize just how amazing this show was until I revisited the first season last year with a friend, and I understand now how I remember the lyrics to the opening in Spanish to this day. You can add to that the Super Hero Squad Show and I was pretty much going insane at the thought of seeing more of these characters with RDJ's Tony Stark. I can't say I'm any less lonely IRL now, but these characters, be it live action or cartoons, became the friends I very desperately needed as a child.

Now, I'm a simple man, I love Tony Stark and he was undoubtedly a big part of my life, I learnt more than just words from him and it was a painfully beautiful end to finish a decade of emotional investment with the same sentence that impressed me as a child, the same sentence in Iron Man 3 which showed Tony as vulnerable as I had been many times in public. But, after some thinking, I've realized my journey was with a different character. 

It was Loki. (And everyone saw this coming from a mile away.)

My journey was complicated. I spent so long trying to be someone else that, with the abrupt switch in my view of the world after coming out, my true feelings towards some characters came out to the light. I grew more confident with myself and what I felt, and I could talk about how that included Steve Rogers' character and writing decisions, but the important one here is that, in this surge of confidence once I stopped ignoring who I am, I was slowly coming back to my  _ roots _ . I was feeling confident about expressing my fondness for Loki's character in public again. 

For context, I had spent 3 years fully denying him and saying it was something from my past. I kept framing it as liking him as a kid because I didn't know better, in the same way I framed my discomfort with pretending to be cisgender as me not knowing better because I thought that I had to be cisgender. Dropping the lies to everyone, but specially myself, with regards to his character was all set into motion by Ragnarok, and it kills me how close to my coming out date it was, and how my conclusion after realizing who I've been this whole time was something similar to that movie's message: learn from the past. 

I learnt from my past that I didn't want to be ashamed of who I was and what I liked any longer, as I had basically wasted my whole life so far in that. These revelations coming to me at the same time Loki went through his own arc to become Asgard's saviour is what got me so attached to Ragnarok Loki in the first place. I saw him become who he had always been, instead of hiding away in what was expected of him ( _ you are the God of Mischief, but you could be so much more _ ), at the same time I was doing something similar and becoming the best version of myself.

While I found a father figure in Tony Stark, by the time Loki came around I was old enough to see him as someone to grow along with, to find something to identify with.  _ And boy did I hit jackpot with unintentional trans subtext _ . His issues with his identity, what he had grown up to believe he was and his relationship with his family clicked with me. Of course, I didn't realize the former until later on, but now I can look back and see logic to why I found it so  _ personally _ interesting to see a character go through everything Loki did in Thor 1. This reflection only grew stronger with the current 616 Loki, who has been confirmed as genderfluid, but that's a suitcase to unpack another day.

" _ These characters have been with us for most of our young lives, following us through youth into something resembling adulthood. As we’ve struggled to grow, to find our place in the terrifying and at times enthralling world of the 21st century, we’ve been able to turn to them when we needed someone to look up to or just someone to show us that we’re not alone, that our imperfections don’t demonize us — that, rather, they are what we make them. They’ve been with us for years, some even over a decade. We’ve watched them grow and they’ve helped us do the same alongside them _ ." —Tres Dean in How Much We Have Left: Saying Goodbye to Tony Stark

As a I said in Twitter, that hit close home, man.

The two characters that were a constant in my life are gone; one with an emotionally charged finale that made me cry for the first time in a long time inside the cinema, and another where I wasn't even allowed to mourn him properly before the title screen told me I had to forget and move on to keep up with the movie. And that is why it's so hard to let go of Loki. Avengers: Endgame only doubled down on that, and now I have to finally say goodbye because any new content on him will not be him. It will be the Loki from another timeline, or maybe even Kid Loki, and then eventually Ikol. And while I am fine with the other timeline's Loki, I can't let go and move on so easily of the Loki that went through Ragnarok. I wasn't allowed to cry for him because Infinity War gave me no time for that, and part of that gave me hope for a year that maybe he could come back in Endgame, and then somewhere down the road I would get the chance to mourn him properly. But that wasn't the case. 

And yes, I understand he is not a main character; Tony got a respectful death because he's been carrying this universe on his back for a decade, and I will miss him like hell, but Tom Hiddleston's Loki was the only one to go from villain to hero in an overarching story throughout the movies, and to have it end so abruptly, so brutally, with no time to even cry for him and his sacrifice… Well, that shit hurted. But we will be okay. His character filled the role he had to, both on screen and for me, so despite my gripes I will find peace in letting go sooner or later.

I am 20 years old and barely starting to see what independence and  _ adulting  _ feels like. I am barely finding out who I am to begin with, so in a way, I don't feel like my journey is done. Even if the chapter I grew up with is over, I feel like I still have a chance to grow with new characters and maybe even see myself in one of them again. LGBTQ+ representation is important to me, and given how Marvel Comics have been disrespectful and even ashamed to the few trans characters they have, I look forward seeing someone like myself in the big screen, in the universe that I grew up with.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on twitter @emhloki for more tears for tony and loki


End file.
